The Internet giant kicked off its annual Google I/O developer conference with a three-hour long (!) keynote at San Francisco’s Moscone West, the same venue Apple reserved for its own five-day event next month. During the keynote, Google executives announced a much-rumored streaming music service that’s bound to give headache to the likes of Spotify, Rdio and Pandora.

Dubbed somewhat confusingly Google Play Music All Access, Google’s Android executive Chris Yerga noted on stage that “music unites us” and is “universal”. And with computing and mobile devices intertwined into our lives “there’s potential to bring that joy together.” Go past the fold for full details…

In exchange for ten bucks a month, Google Play Music All Access let you stream songs from Google’s catalog of million tracks. The service will be available on the web at play.google.com (via any standard web browser) and as a native app for Android devices (no mention of an iOS build yet).

“What if we gave you access to millions of tracks, in addition to your iTunes library?”, Yerga asked his audience?

Indeed, the All Access thing combines your existing music collection and the millions of songs available for streaming into one massive database that you can explore quickly by tapping the power of built-in Google search.

“We’re Google, so there’s always Search at the top,” Yerga quipped.

In addition to streaming, you can buy any streamed song with a tap and own it forever.

Another killer feature: radio without rules.

Taking advantage of knowledge Google has on you, the feature lets you turn any track into a radio station tailored to your listening habits. You can also edit the radio queue to manually remove music you don’t like or add your cherry-picked tracks.

All Access also supports playlists, has curated Featured section, and includes personalized recommendations akin to Apple’s iTunes Genius. These expose folks to new music they may like based on what they’ve listened to in the past.

As demoed on an Android device — it also works in a standard web browser — All Access incorporates both local tracks and those available for streaming into one master searchable library, a marked improvement over much of its streaming competition.

Google will offer a free 30-day trial so you could try out the service before subscribing.

It gets even better: if you’re an early adopter, Google will reduce the $9.99 tier to $7.99, a $24 saving over the course of twelve months, provided you start your trial by June 30.

By contrast, Spotify offers a free, ad-supported tier on desktops along a Premium ad-free service across mobile and desktop, also costing ten bucks a month. Google’s All Access is a paid-only affair so it should be interesting seeing how the two battle it out for the hears and minds of consumers

Spotify’s advantage is Facebook integration and a Timeline app that sends lots of traffic to Spotify, helping turn listeners into buyers. Google will of course tap its Google+ social thing, even if it’s far less popular than Facebook.

It’s Spotify’s game to lose as Google has pretty much everything Spotify does.

All Access may as well stand poised to drive music lovers away from iTunes, which only offers individual song downloads. Although a streaming music offering from Apple dubbed iRadio has reportedly been long in the making, we’ll have to wait until WWDC to see if there’s merit to those rumors.

Related Topics

is the $7.99 indefinite as long as you sign up before june 30? or does it expire after a year?

http://www.facebook.com/liamsagooch Liam Googolplex Merlyn

More than likely, unless you cancel your subscription for whatever reason

http://twitter.com/EdwardDraper Edward Draper

It is a price lock for one year.

http://www.facebook.com/prithviraju114 Prithvi Raju

should wait for iRadio… The toughest challenges to iTunes are ahead.

Tony Klapatch

Am I the only one who prefers Pandora?

Gorgonphone

Pandora is the best

carlos burns

I see this being a success if google were to include an ios app but realistically most people who use android devices are well “cheap”. I can remember how many times i have heard friends say well theres a free version or find a way to not pay which am guilty of as well from time to time.

Another interesting point that i wonder how it will affect Googles service adoption is how Apple and Spotify have a much larger selection to chose from

Gorgonphone

d

http://twitter.com/doubleaa25 Adham Snorlax

I don’t want more services as much as I want one of these services to be available in Canada.

MrM0N0P0LY

Grooveshark is the best

http://www.facebook.com/liamsagooch Liam Googolplex Merlyn

I like Grooveshark but the fact it’s all user uploaded doesn’t guarantee it’s quality.
Also, they banned me for uploading copyrighted content even though their whole database is built up on copyrighted content

http://twitter.com/aidanharris1 ✪ aidan harris ✪

Sounds interesting. Desktop only or will it work on a mobile browser. Also US only or international?

https://twitter.com/MrElectrifyer MrElectrifyer

Meh, my iTunes library is big enough for me…

Mohammad Ridwan

Not a bad deal. imo

http://www.facebook.com/jonnathanriera JonNathan David Riera

will they have an iphone app?

http://www.facebook.com/martindunsmore Martin Dunsmore

I don’t see why any existing Spotify users or users of a similar service will switch other than being a Google fan. Once again Google are late to the party, just like Google+.

Eldaria

Been using Spotify Premium since 2008, and the one fetaure that would make me switch, provided the same amount of music and platform availability is available. Is an affordable famliy subscription. It is absolutely silly that I can play two different CD’s in two different places, but if I start playing Spotify one place the other stops.

http://twitter.com/inline Chris Harland

So if you have no Internet access (eg on an airplane), then no access to non-purchased songs?

If so I’ll stick to spotify. I like being able to keep 3000 songs or so on three separate devices.

http://twitter.com/Gnargusto Gnargusto

One word. Mog.

http://twitter.com/chris12923 Chris Wagers

I love apple and I’m even a fanboy I guess but I hate how apple invents or reinvents something and then they let it go stagnate. I wish they kept their heads thinking about new big features all the time. Flame me if ya want but just my opinion.